These days, design experts are rallying around this notion: If you were to design a new urban hotel or renovate such an existing property, the look and feel would be one of chic, hip, and ultra comfortable and laid-back in the guest rooms.
It’s already the prevalent style of today’s city center hotels, catering largely to business travelers, experts say. Hotels that want to attract their fair share of business travelers also must make technology as easy as possible for guests to use and provide absolute ease and convenience.
“You want to be able to unwind when you walk into a room and have a sense of calm, especially for business travelers,” says Craig Smith, partner at C2 Limited Design Associates, a Fairfield, Connecticut, company specializing in interior design of hotels, resorts, and spas. “Even in a hotel with smaller guest rooms, you can use built-in furniture that will offer more of a feeling of space. You don’t want to have a desk crammed in a corner, especially in a hotel designed with business travelers in mind.”
Design is much more casual these days in urban properties, with the lines between lobby/bar/F&B becoming more blurred in the public spaces, says Jim Looney, president of Looney & Associates, a Dallas architectural interior design. For dining and drinking, the communal experience - or the “Starbucks effect” - is in, with more communal tables and offerings at the bar where business travelers can mingle with others, he adds. Looney has built or renovated numerous Hyatt hotels in the past few years in various locations across the country.
“The downturn in the economy has caused hotels to rethink their focus, including hip (usually small), and less expensive rooms, while still maintaining a cool, non-hostel vibe, free wireless Internet, and the usual amenities, such as gym access,” says Kati Curtis, certified interior designer with Nirmada Interior Design in New York City.
The hip lobby scene is becoming more popular in primary and secondary business traveler destinations, which are competing very strongly against other local properties, notes Barclay Butera, president and chief executive officer of Barclay Butera Inc., a Los Angeles interiors and furnishings design firm. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Aloft hotels, with their signature rooms and bars, is an example of such a hip new style of hotel for business travelers, Butera points out.
“The lobby is much more than just a lobby these days in urban hotels. They are a meeting, entertaining and relaxing area for people to congregate and see one another,” says Brian Fagerstrom, a partner in the Worth Group, a Denver-based architecture and interiors design firm.
For instance, when the 910-room Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch underwent a $63 million renovation and converted from an Adams Mark in July, it created an open bar/restaurant right at the lobby entrance, says Brian Morris, director of sales and marketing. This allowed business travelers to meet up with colleagues and friends literally upon entering the property.
Guest rooms must have easily accessible technology for today’s wireless traveler. The Hyatt in St. Louis added in-room amenities such as fast Internet connections and “outlets where you want them for Blackberrys, iPhones and the like,” Morris says.
“Business travelers have different needs than other travelers,” he adds. “It’s largely about making their stay as convenient and comfortable as possible.”
Included in this convenience is the ability to easily and quickly control lighting in a room. “A guest shouldn’t need a Ph.D. to be able to turn lights on and off,” Smith says.
In addition, urban hotel guest rooms these days have a more soothing, inviting look – designed to help calm road-weary business travelers. When the 434-room Ritz-Carlton Chicago underwent a $13 million renovation from January through April of 2009, the guest rooms featured soft tones of blue and pewter, says General Manager Michele Grosso. Also, instead of the more traditional heavy curtains, the property added microshades to the guest room windows - that allow guests to look out and see the skyline and have some feel of the outdoors.
“The rooms have a light, more airy, relaxed look and feel – much more inviting to business travelers on the go,” Grosso says.
In addition, the guest rooms were fitted with more comfortable, office-type chairs, an LCD TV that they can put presentations on if they need to, and total wireless capabilities. This gives them more of an executive-level type office space to use in the guest room that is more efficiently designed and ergonomic, Grosso says.
Overall, today’s guest rooms in city hotels have more of a den feel to them, not just the feel of a bedroom – which is what hotel rooms have traditionally been viewed as, Fagerstrom notes. While you may have a specific work desk or workspace, there may be two or three places overall in the room where you would feel comfortable working.
“This is a trend that is very important to business travelers, who need to get work done in their room and want to feel that they have various options,” Fagerstrom adds.
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